by Overton, Max
"And you would choose the latter for this candidate of yours? Well, who is he? What is his family and what are his qualifications?"
"He is not royal born but his relatives are royal, and his qualifications are of the best. He is a skilled administrator and he is second to none in experience."
Ankhesenamen frowned. "My family has no male relative...and I thought you said you were the most experienced..."
Ay smiled and bowed to his queen.
"You?" The young woman stared at her elderly grandfather. "You?"
"It's logical, isn't it?"
"No it isn't. It's disgusting."
Ay's smile remained on his face but his gaze hardened. "Come, that is the woman speaking, not the queen. Kemet needs a king and the only way it can get one is through your marriage to a suitable man. I'm your only male blood relative."
"Then I must, as you say, look further afield. One of the nobles..."
"Such as?"
"I don't know...Ramose perhaps..."
Ay laughed. "Kemet would be derided by the nations. The man has the wit of a turtle."
"Khamont then..."
"Married already..."
"...or Userre..."
"...diseased..."
"...or even Amentep..."
"...a fool. Ankhesenamen, be realistic. Don't you think I have considered other options thoroughly? No doubt you could find a younger son or two of nobility who would warm your bed and pleasure your belly, but is that your prime consideration? What of the good of Kemet? Don't you want our lands to achieve Ma'at after these many years of disturbance? Put aside your womanly desires and show me you're a queen of Kemet."
"You're an unacceptable alternative," Ankhesenamen said crisply. "I would sooner bed a slave."
"What is so objectionable?" Ay asked mildly.
The young queen snorted and turned away. She pulled a curtain aside and let a great shaft of hot sunlight cut a swathe through the darkness of the room. "You're my grandfather. Isn't that enough?" She stood and looked out of the window, her eyes squinting against the brightness.
Ay followed the young woman over to the window. "You married your father and had a child by him. Then you married your uncle and had two more. Are you telling me you have suddenly decided that bedding your kin is distasteful?"
Ankhesenamen turned her head away, apparently studying the monotonous actions of a gardener hoeing a flowerbed. "That was different. I was very young then and the king commanded it. I had no choice in the matter."
"I seem to remember a young girl positively panting to climb into King Nebkheperure's bed."
Ankhesenamen flushed. "I loved him...I love him."
"Well, that's finished and you must choose again. I'm family, dear child. You could not do better."
She shook her head. "No. I will not."
"Why not? Being a relative is not a good enough reason. Why, even the gods do it--brother beds sister, father mounts daughter, mother opens to son. Do you think yourself better than the gods?"
Ankhesenamen said nothing, still staring out of the window at the palace gardens. A gust of hot air blew in, carrying with it the acrid smell of desert dust.
"What is your objection?" Ay probed again.
"I'm a young woman still, with firm loins. I'm capable of bearing sons. I don't want an old man, smelly and wrinkled, in my bed."
Ay's lips twitched with contempt. "As long as you were discreet, you could take any man to bed for all I care. I do not lust after you."
"You would not bed me?"
"Of course I would bed you. I know my duty well enough, and if I did not I would not be king legitimately. The people would expect it of a Bull of Heru. But you can be assured we would have separate suites thereafter. The only times you would need to be with me are on state occasions."
"I would have my own servants? Picked by me, not you?"
"Yes."
"And I could see whom I chose, when I chose?"
"As I said, as long as you were discreet."
"And if I conceived? Had a son?"
"Let us deal with that when it happens."
Ankhesenamen turned to face her grandfather. She scanned his face, trying to see into his soul. "The palace can be a dangerous place. Would my son survive?"
"Who knows? That is in the hands of the gods. If you mean, would I harm him? No. You know as well as I that there's always a place for a royal child." Ay smiled wryly. "Your grandfather Nebmaetre had many sons by palace women who found places as scribes, officials and overseers."
"Would my son succeed as king?"
"My son Nakhtmin will be king after me. If he is childless...well, we will see. A male must inherit the throne and he would be my great-grandson."
"Nakhtmin? You would make him Crown Prince? He is not your son--not royal blood. He's the son of Djetmaktef."
"He was," Ay corrected. "Now he's my son. I adopted him according to the forms. He will inherit everything I have."
"But he's a commoner by birth. Who will he marry to give him legitimacy?"
"He will not need to. He is legally my son. He will be king because he's the son of a king."
"If you are king."
Ay looked up sharply. "If? What have we been talking about, Ankhesenamen? You will marry me, be queen beside me, and live a life of luxury doing whatever you please."
"No."
Ay's brow furrowed and he glared at his granddaughter. "You don't have a choice. I am the only possibility as your husband and future king. Only I can draw the Two Lands together in harmony. You will marry me."
"I will not."
Ay laughed. "King Nebkheperure died ten days ago and lies in his bath of natron. In another sixty days he is laid in his tomb. Three days later, I will marry you in sight of the populace of Waset, and immediately be crowned king. You cannot prevent it."
"I am the Queen. I do not have to do anything you say."
"You were the Queen while your husband was alive. Now you are just a young, inexperienced woman out of your depth in these troubled times."
Ankhesenamen paled and, despite the heat of the room, shivered. "I...I will have you arrested."
"You can try, but the Amun legion is under my control. No one will obey you."
"My husband should have destroyed you as soon as we arrived in Waset."
Ay grinned broadly. "But he did not, so I am still Tjaty and, in the eyes of everyone in the city, the logical heir to the Double Throne."
"Horemheb will not allow you to do this."
"Horemheb is not here and is unlikely to return before my coronation. He is loyal and will not contest me once I am king."
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Chapter Two
Queen Ankhesenamen stood by the window for a long time after Tjaty Ay had left. She watched the gardener hoeing the flowerbeds until he finished, and then she followed the swoop of the swallows as they flitted through the heat-rippled air, hawking for insects to feed their broods nesting under the eaves of the palace. This brought tears to her eyes as she recalled the hours she had spent with her husband watching the swallows when they had been children.
"What am I to do, Tuti?" she muttered. "Why did you have to die and leave me in grandfather's hands? You should have killed him when you had the chance." She heard a faint whisper of linen behind her and turned, the hairs on her arms rising in superstitious dread. Her glance slipped to the life-sized statue of the king in the alcove by the bed, but the painted eyes stared back unseeing, the wooden arms remained unmoving by its side. The rustle came again.
"My lady? May I attend on you?"
Ankhesenamen saw an old woman in a plain servant's dress standing by the door. She recognised the woman as one of the servants of the bedchamber inherited from her mother's palace in Akhet-Aten a lifetime ago. Servants came and went in the palace, largely unseen except by the overseers and other servants, and the young queen knew her only as a vaguely familiar face. "Yes. Bring chilled wine and some figs."
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br /> The servant bowed and hurried out, returning a few minutes later with a carved wooden tray. She busied herself around a low table by the wall, and then brought over a glass goblet beaded with condensation and a small dish of ripe figs. "My lady," she murmured, setting the goblet and dish on the windowsill.
Ankhesenamen nodded and sipped on the chilled wine as she looked out of the window, watching the swooping swallows once more. After a few moments, she put the goblet down and bent her head, leaning on her arms. A sob shook her slender body.
"My...my lady..." The servant's voice was low and hesitant, as if reluctant to interrupt the queen's grief.
Ankhesenamen looked up, tears streaking the kohl around her eyes. "What is it?"
The servant held out a linen cloth. "Do not grieve, my lady. The king feasts with the gods."
Ankhesenamen stared, ignoring the proffered cloth. "What do you mean? The king's body lies in the House of Life. He will not join the gods until his burial."
The servant flushed. "I...I meant...forgive me, my lady..." She bowed low and backed away.
"No, stay. What did you mean? It was an outlandish thing to say."
"Forgive me," the old woman repeated. "I meant no offence. I was thinking of my homeland and my people's beliefs. Of course they would not apply to the Great King of the Two Lands."
Ankhesenamen reached out and took the linen cloth from the servant's hand. She dabbed at her eyes and grimaced at the black smudges on the clean cloth. "I must look a mess," she murmured.
"Let me send for your makeup overseer, my lady."
"No. Explain what you meant first. What is your name?"
"Tipallil, my lady. In the palace they call me Tia."
"Well, Tipar...Tiparri...Tia..." Ankhesenamen stumbled over the name, "Where is your homeland?"
The old woman's expression became pensive. "The village of Irabil, my lady. In the land of the Hittites."
"Really? A Hittite? How long have you been in the Land of the Gods?"
"I have been in Kemet for over forty years," Tipallil said carefully. "I was sold as a slave when I was a young girl."
The queen pondered this information for a few minutes. She chewed on a fig and examined the old woman critically. "The bones of your face are high and sharp. You must have been beautiful."
Tipallil grinned toothlessly. "I was, my lady. Why, for a time I was very popular and not just..."
Ankhesenamen cut her off with an impatient gesture. "What did you mean about the king feasting with the gods? That is not at all what we are told by the priests."
"My people believe that a warrior who dies in battle feasts that evening with the gods in the underworld."
"The king didn't die in battle. He died three days later."
"No matter, my lady. He died of wounds received in battle. The gods would still receive him with honour."
"If he were a Hittite king," Ankhesenamen added.
"Yes, my lady, but...the king was a mighty warrior. I have no doubt the gods look favourably on his shade."
"That is not what our priests tell us and they should know as they talk to the gods." Ankhesenamen sipped at her wine again. "What is it like in the land of the Hittites?"
"My lady, it was many years ago and I was only eight when I was sold. I cannot remember much."
"What can you remember, Tia?"
Without thinking, Tia sat on the edge of the bed, her thoughts turned inward as she sought the scraps of her memory from her childhood. "The hills and the cool air," she said softly. "Rain...my mother holding me...horses...I saw the King of the Hittites once..."
"The present king? Shubbiluliuma? He has not been king that long."
"No my lady. He was only a prince then, one of many strong sons. The Hittite kings spawn sons like young bulls throw calves in a herd of cows. He rode through our village on a hunt and I saw him, as close as I am to you now."
"What manner of man is he?"
Tia shrugged. "Now I could not say for he is older than I and no doubt grey and fat. Then he was like a god."
"Is he good to his people?"
"I cannot say, my lady, but he has many sons ready to take his place. If his people did not think him worthy to rule they would cast him down and raise another in his stead."
"They could do that?" Ankhesenamen stared wide-eyed at the old woman. "Do not the gods of your people protect the king? Is he not one of them?"
"No my lady. The king of the Hittites is just a man, not a god."
"How uncivilised. In Kemet, the king is also a god."
Tia said nothing, though she thought it uncivilised to imagine a god could die--as the young king had recently.
"Shubbiluliuma has many sons?"
"Yes my lady. Some say he begat hundreds on the willing girls of the hill tribes, but he has more than a dozen by his queen and secondary wives."
"And his sons are as virile?"
Tipallil looked askance at her mistress, wondering what was going on in her mind. "I cannot say for a certainty, my lady, but the Hittite princes have always been fertile."
Ankhesenamen drank from her goblet again before placing it back on the windowsill. "Well, this is all very interesting, Tia, but you have kept me gossiping long enough." She rose to her feet, the old woman hurriedly rising from the bed also. "Send for my overseer of make-up," she commanded.
Tipallil bowed and hurried out on her errand. Within minutes, a bevy of servants under the guidance of the overseer of make-up arrived and immediately ushered the queen to her toiletry table. The overseer tut-tutted over the state of Ankhesenamen's kohl and instructed one girl to remove all traces of pigment from the queen's face and another to mix up a fresh batch from the unguent jars lining the table. Other girls, under the lash of the overseer's tongue, busied themselves with other aspects of the toilet--readying the pigments for cheek and lips, crushed malachite for the eyes, gold beads for the wig and a fresh new linen dress. Over an hour had passed by the time the overseer pronounced herself satisfied and she held up the polished silver mirror for the queen.
Ankhesenamen stared at her rippled image reflected in the silver, wishing there was a way to turn a simple pool of water on its side. The reflection from still water was far superior to this beaten metal. She sighed and turned her head back and forth. "It will do," she muttered.
The overseer clapped her hands and the girls fled. "My lady." She bowed and backed out of the royal presence.
The queen followed her out of the suite and, with four guards in attendance, walked toward the office of the Palace Chamberlain. News of her approach was carried to Chamberlain Maya-Re as he took a leisurely luncheon in the gardens and he immediately ran as fast as his legs would carry his bulk toward his office. He reached it just before the queen and stood waiting, red-faced and sweating, as she walked in.
"Your Highness." Maya-Re bowed and cast his eyes around for a suitable chair for his queen. He muttered an imprecation at his absent assistant and waddled over to his own chair, dragging it across the floor.
Ankhesenamen sat down and arranged the folds of her gown about her. "You look as if you have been running, Maya-Re. Have you been chasing pretty girls?"
The Chamberlain looked shocked but swiftly hid his chagrin with another bow. "I was in the gardens, your Highness, when news was brought to me of your presence. I hurried so that I might carry out your commands."
Ankhesenamen hesitated, suddenly unsure of the loyalties of her servants. Hiding her uncertainty, she skirted around the issue. "Is Lord Ay still in the palace?"
"No, your Highness. He departed for the city some time ago. Er, did he not see you before he left? He demanded access to your apartments."
The queen nodded. "I saw him but I wish to discuss something further with him."
"I...I could send a messenger after him." The Chamberlain looked doubtful. "He will be across the river by now."
"No matter. Is there a military person I could talk to?"
"M...military, your Highness. You want
a soldier?"
"No, a troop commander if possible. A lesser officer if there is no other. Do we have such a person in the palace?"
"The barracks is in the city, my lady..."
"I know that. I want to know if there is an officer over here."
"There is the Commander of the Palace Guard, my lady."
Ankhesenamen pondered this, keeping her expression neutral. Ay had been Tjaty of Ta Shemau so long that almost every officer was likely picked by him. If the Commander owed his loyalty to Ay then anything she said to him would find her grandfather's ear within hours. She realised the Chamberlain was still speaking. "What did you say?" she asked sharply.
"I...er, I said there was a Leader of a Hundred visiting his aunt in the er...kitchens, my lady. But he is not on active service. He is recovering from a wound."
"Oh? How was he wounded?"
"In the er...battle outside Waset, my lady. He was an officer in the Northern Army."
One of Horemheb's men , thought Ankhesenamen. "He is in the palace now?"
"I believe so, my lady. He is staying with his aunt for a few days."
"Good. Send for him."
"My lady? If...if you need to see someone concerning military matters, the Commander would be better..."
"It has nothing to do with that. If this man fought alongside the king and was wounded, he should be thanked. I cannot thank everyone, but I will talk to this man. Send for him."
Chamberlain Maya-Re bowed. "At once, your majesty."
The man was ushered in, limping. He at once dropped to his knees on the cool stone tiles and brought a knuckle to his forehead, bowing his head. "Divine majesty," he murmured.
Ankhesenamen left him there for a long moment as she examined the kneeling man. "Get up," she said at last. She gestured to one of the guards to bring the soldier a chair. "What is your name, soldier?"
The soldier sat, though he fidgeted, looking uncomfortable to be seated in the presence of the queen. "I...I am Meny, son of Userje, Leader of a Hundred in the Re Legion of the Northern Army, Divine One. Leastwise, I was, but now I'm a Leader of Fifty."
"You came south with Tjaty Horemheb?"
"Yes, Divine One."